“Nothing gold can stay,” reminds us the poet Robert Frost, and this applies to black metal. Its gold occurred between 1991 and 1994, when its progenitors innovated a new style and took it to great heights, but after Burzum – Hvis Lyset Tar Oss, it became clear that black metal was not content to be a normal, rock-style music genre.

Nuclear War Now! Productions has re-released Demoncy‘s hypothermic Within the Sylvan Realms of Frost, continuing the independent metal label effort to repackage every outstanding death and black metal classic into commercialized fodder for every awkward hipster deadbeat lurking online. While clearly this reissue CD is a cash grab from Ixithra (You can still find the Faustian Dawn / Within the Sylvan Realms of Frostanthology CD for under ten bucks on Discogs) marketed towards recent nu-metal drop outs who never heard the original, revisiting of Demoncy’s most mysterious full length is certainly worth a listen as it benefits from a much improved sound quality. Since every re-release inadvertently strips the original album of its cult status and lore let’s make the most of our opportunity to embark on one more journey through the frigid tundra of Demoncy’s best kept secret.

As the continent was before Britannic penal colonization, Australian black and death metal scene was and is still mostly an undeveloped desert of unexceptional crossover thrash posturing as “war metal”, blackened cheeseball beer metal, AC/DC clones with unclean vocals, and experimental technical deaf metal/post-hardcore/jazz fusion hybrids. Martire rode forth from obscurity to restore fruit and flower to the wasteland, fertilizing the barren bush wielding fire and sword.